Yeah, the sheer domination by numbers of masculine voices - even when they're not trying to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, can just be draining in situations like this. Especially when they're not trying to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, frankly, because it's very hard to get across "I know you're not trying to ignore the value of a slightly different perspective, but..." without making them feel like they need to defend themselves and go on about how we're reading into them things they're not saying, they're not biased, men are capable of being open-minded, there's no single male perspective, etc. All those things are true, and before any of our male allies on this list get upset, I want to acknowledge that...but at the same time, that gender-related invisible knapsack can just sort of steer male-dominated discussions in directions that a more gender-balanced conversation might not swerve, or might not swerve so strongly.

Commons, especially, is just completely dominated by certain viewpoints with regard to sexual images, and Sarah, you get tons of my respect for just attempting to function there, because I certainly can't do it. I might be able to handle an inadvertent boys-zone atmosphere - I hang out on enwp, after all - but my blood pressure just can't handle the level of aggression Commons bring to bear on anyone who dares speak for the deletion of potentially-damaging images.

Most days, it's hard to feel like it's worth it to join conversations that are already immovable brick walls of a particular, usually-unconscious male POV.

-Fluff

P.S. On re-reading the threads from my original email, I note that I was wrong about the "100% male" thing - Beria Lima commented twice. So uh, 99.999% male?


On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry if this gets a little off topic from the actual focus of the subjects. I just need to personally vent and this gives me a chance (thanks Katherine). I assume I can't be the only one who feels this way, and it seems you might also. 

I totally understand the "it depresses me" situation. I got involved in some of the discussions about the women's foo categories only to get bombarded with comments when I brought up "I don't know if anyone here is even a woman involved, from what I know, I think I might be the only woman here," and then to be snapped at "How do you know I'm not a woman?" by someone with a male user name (Jeremy). I felt like a total fail, and basically left the conversation only to get comments on my talk page. I have officially declared I'm "burnt out" on any and all gender conversations, specifically triggered by the recent category situation. 

95% if not more of the people discussing all of these things are, from what I believe, identifying on Wikipedia as the masculine. It's really troubling for me, and right now I'm at the point where I just can't fight it right now. I'm feeling depressed about it, hopeless, and all of the other fun things that go with burn out. (Funny, I didn't suffer burn out this severe when I was a fellow, but I did have two minor bouts of burn out during that year, this is by far the worst)

I basically had to stop doing the painful nomination and arguing about nudity and women's images on Commons. Part of this was because it was so demoralizing and depressing, and the other was the repeated "You'll never be an admin on Commons if you keep doing this," and I always wanted to be an admin on Commons. The fact that I let this argument - being made by male Commonists - trigger me to not participate in the conversations is an entirely different psychological issue in itself! Oy vey. 

Gah. :( 

-Sarah


On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:08 AM, Katherine Casey <fluffernutter.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Came across this kerfuffle today. I'd love to see what more gendergap-focused people think about the following progression of events (note: the image is NSFW, but each of the links I'm providing are SFW if you don't click through to the image/article):
Speaking personally, my takeaway from reading through this situation has gone through "mortification in empathy for the image subject, who was almost certainly drunk and unable to consent", "frustration with Commons's dismissive approach to the questioning of identfiable sexual images", and finally "realization that in all three discussions, I see no users who I know to be female. Not one. It seems quite likely that the issue of whether this woman's right to be protected by BLP extends to images of her breasts...is being discussed 100% by men."

I don't quite know what my point is here, other than to note that to me, this feels very, very representative of the way women and women's issues are treated on WP and on Commons, even when we're supposed to be hyper-aware of the gendergap and its effects, and it depresses me.

-Fluffernutter

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--
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Sarah Stierch
Museumist, open culture advocate, and Wikimedian

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